1. Technical Field
The present disclosure relates generally to communications systems, including those for use by crew members of passenger vehicles. More particularly, the present disclosure relates to electronic mail-based aircraft and ground crew messaging.
2. Related Art
At the individual aircraft level, conducting flight operations requires the coordinated efforts of numerous personnel. These include flight crew, which broadly encompasses those on board during the flight to operate the aircraft, and includes flight deck positions and cabin positions on passenger flights. Additionally, there are ground crews that service and maintain the aircraft in between flights, as well as manage various ground-based operations at airports to ensure the movement of passengers and/or cargo. Airlines that operate a large fleet of aircraft must coordinate numerous flights across multiple departing and destination airports around the globe with the operation center of the airline, with air traffic control, and with national aviation authorities.
One widely deployed data communications system for this purpose is known as ACARS, or Aircraft Communications Addressing and Reporting System. The ACARS infrastructure provides bidirectional air-to-ground digital communications via VHF, HF, and satellite transmissions. Most ACARS messages have a structured format, but it also possible to include a free text field within the ACARS message. This free text field has been used by In-Flight Entertainment (IFE) applications to support cabin crew text messaging with ground personnel.
During the course of a flight, the ground crew and airline operations centers communicate with the flight crew as needed. With a continued reliance on the ACARS infrastructure, messaging applications built into existing cabin in-flight entertainment (IFE) systems could be used to send messages to the ground crew and airline operation centers by accessing the ACARS Management Unit (MU). Bandwidth of ACARS transmissions is limited, and in some MU installations, such access by IFE systems may have been denied in order to conserve available bandwidth. In other MU installations, such access by IFE systems may have been denied to increase the security of the flight deck, by segregating IFE systems from networks shared by the flight deck. In either case, some airlines are no longer able to rely on ACARS as a universal solution across their entire fleet for crew messaging.
There are several shortcomings associated with an ACARS-based crew messaging system. In particular, a flight crew must physically access a fixed terminal at various locations around the aircraft to perform a specific fixed task. The remaining workload must be completed with separate devices, which may not necessarily be proximate to these fixed terminals. Furthermore, information must be transferred manually from the separate devices to the fixed terminals. Finally, an ACARS based crew messaging system does not provide any support for MIME attachments, such as images. These shortcomings, coupled with the uneven deployment of ACARS based messaging solutions across an airline fleet, create operational inefficiencies within the airlines.
Due to these inefficiencies there is a need in the art for an improved crew messaging system that eliminates reliance on the existing ACARS infrastructure. In particular, there is a need for supporting both on-board and ground mobility, capable of handling all types of data files. Therefore, there is a need in the art for an electronic mail-based vehicle crew messaging system as contemplated by the present disclosure.